A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

160 ES-SOIIAN.
allowed us the option of taking his Dahabieh
up the First Cataract, we gladly profit by the
permission to proceed without a change of con-
veyance to the end of our voyage.
Es-souan, the Syene of the ancients, formed
the southern limit of the Roman empire; for
beyond this place and its adjacent islands of
Elephantina and Philae, they did not attempt
to extend their conquest. The ruins of a Sa-
racen town which was depopulated by the
plague in the middle ages, crown a rocky emi-
nence over the river, and impart an air of
sadness and desolation to the place. Here the
Nile completely changes its usual physiognomy
no longer a broad flood calmly rolling its waters
through flat monotonous banks, it here takes a
bend, and narrowed and hemmed in between
granite mountains, it rushes rapidly through a
rocky channel studded with little islets of red
granite and black basalt, and assumes the cha-
racter of lake scenery. The Nubian frontier,
on the eastern side, is close to the town, and
on the west it is at once gained by crossing
over to the Island of Elephantina, just oppo-
site, and only a few hundred yards distant from
Es-souan.
Placing ourselves under the guidance of a
;